a river (in the not good times)
by ecstaticallygray
Summary: But more importantly, Rufus couldn't be gone. Wyatt couldn't be gone. Because if they were, she wouldn't know what she was fighting for anymore. A speculation into the events of 2x01, based on the promos and spoilers that have been recently released. Lyatt centric.


**Hello! I just recently bingewatched the whole season of Timeless and I'm very emotional. I'm just glad we're days away from season two because the wait is already killing me. This fic is based on all the spoilers and the promos we've recently gotten. Hope you enjoy! Title is from the song Breathe by Lauv.**

* * *

She was not unaware that there was something between them. Something that grazed her heart with feather touches when he looked at her a certain kind of way, something that anchored its solidity to her very bones, constant, like a rock. But like almost all other things in her life, she had also accepted that this- whatever this was between them- this was something that she had no control over. The ball was in his court –the ball was always going to be in his court- and even though it should've made her feel powerless, it just made her feel calm instead.

With their unending fight against time, there was a certain freedom in letting go, a freedom in knowing that the matter was out of your hands. If he came to her, he would come to her in time, and if he didn't, nothing would change. So even though the thing between them crested and fell between touches and moments, she put the matter at the back of her mind. She didn't overthink it, she didn't dwell on it constantly, over and over. She smiled at him, heart brimming, and she let it be.

That didn't mean that it didn't hurt sometimes though.

Moments where she could see him so thoroughly _hurting_ and she would be powerless to help, moments when she realized with a sudden clarity that she had fallen for the last person who could ever love her back; the moment when she had stood back and let him walk out her door, knowing that he was risking _everything_ to go after his lost love, and knowing that she could only ever be happy for him.

It hurt more when he stepped out of the Lifeboat, eyed full of fervid hope, and she saw him fall to pieces in front of her eyes as he was taken away. After everything they had been through, somehow seeing him finally break down was the worst of it, the manic sound of his voice twisting something inside of her, resounding loudly in her head, wrenching at her heartstrings. At that moment, there was nothing of her wants or needs –she only wanted for him to not be in pain.

She saw him recover too; she saw him pull himself up; she saw him willingly take hold of his reality, finally embracing it for the first time. Even though her heart still ached for him, what she felt then was pride, surety. If he could get it together, if he could stand tall once again after everything he had been through, then they all could.

His presence back at her side was as familiar as the weight of her locket around her neck, and their talk back at Mason Industries was bittersweet. The thing between them fluctuated, batted its wings, to and fro, to and fro. And yet, there was still that distance that she did not have the power to overcome. Seeing that familiar smile on his face felt sweeter than their newest victory though, and it was a relief when he volunteered to accompany her on their last mission. She couldn't believe that all this was coming to an end –even with all they had been through, she wanted to latch onto them, to him and Rufus, the only constants she had left. She knew somehow that it couldn't work without them, that all three of them had to be there to bring Amy back into existence.

When he talked to her about possibilities, it didn't compute right there and then. But later, when everything was wrong once again and she thought back to the moment, she realized that he had quoted her own words back to her. Oh, she thought. _Oh._

But with her mother's revelation, her life once again upended on itself. She felt the betrayal deep inside her chest, latched on to it with angry claws. As she was coerced into the Mothership, she was numb, quiet, despite her mother's persistence in trying to get her to engage. She locked her eyes with the small camera in the corner of the warehouse, hoping that her team was at the other side. Inside her chest, her hope for Amy slowly shriveled upon itself, retrieving in hopelessness.

Her hands were oddly calm as she buckled herself in, avoiding her mother's gaze.

"You know they're going to come after me," she said solidly. "Wyatt and Rufus. They're never let you abduct me like this."

"Please, Lucy," Carol said, her hands fluently working the buckle as if she had gone through the motions a hundred times before. "I'm not abducting you, don't be dramatic." She looked up, locking her eyes with her daughter meaningfully, "And Wyatt and Rufus won't be a problem anymore."

The buckle slipped from Lucy's fingers, digging into the edge of her index finger. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Before her mother could reply, they were surrounded by a familiar whirring and a few seconds later, the three-woman entourage was there no more.

* * *

The first few seconds into the blast, his thought he was back in a warzone. The force with which he was knocked backwards, the prolonged screech in his ear, the spikes of pain shooting with alarming alacrity down his spine. He inhaled thick gusts of smoke and then coughed it back out, eyes stinging, skin prickling as if struck with a thousand pieces of smarting shrapnel.

It didn't take him more than two seconds to understand what was really happening and then he was bracing himself on the floor, one arm pressed against his nose, scanning the debris of Mason Industries around him. His second thought was of Lucy and Rufus, of Jiya and Cristopher and Mason.

Through the smoke, he could see silhouettes swarming the bullpen, could hear the guns going off, finishing off anyone that was left. His chest contracted, bile filling up in his throat, vision blurring momentarily before sliding back into place. Rufus was still here. He had to find Rufus.

But first, he needed to get his hands on a gun.

He waited, crouching behind a desk until one of the masked gunmen came his way, a flashlight fixed to the gun he was pointing this way and that. Wyatt crept up on him silently, and this time he didn't think twice before he grabbed the assailant from behind, twisting the man's neck to the side in a swift _pop_ , discarding the limp body to the ground. He retrieved the man's gun and silently crept forwards, heading towards one of the mechanical rooms where Rufus had been headed only minutes before the blast had gone off.

He encountered two more gunmen on his way and he took them out in quick succession, taking cover behind a corner and then striking with lethal efficiency. His initial panic had worn off, and now there was only silence in his mind, a single-mindedness to his goal. Every sound he heard was that of impending danger, every breath he took had a thick-willed purpose. Thick clouds of smoke floated above his head and the lights in the hallway flickered and burned, dull rays penetrating and then dispersing into the hazy air.

He found Rufus only a few seconds after one of their unknown assailants. The gunman pointed her gun at Rufus, and Wyatt pointed his gun at her. Rufus's eyes were wide, his hands raised, face ashen and dusted with a thin filming of soot. Wyatt acted purely on instinct, his body knowing what to do before his brain had even caught up with the situation.

Without even fully entering the room, he popped two neat bullets in the back of the woman's skull and Rufus let out a startled yelp as the sound of the gunshots ricocheted across the room, and the woman's body fell forwards. He quickly scrambled out of the way and Wyatt stepped towards Rufus, scanning his friends for any obvious signs of injury.

"Oh God," Rufus breathed. His hands trembled by his sides and a shallow, dirty cut lined a corner of his face, beside his right eyebrow. "Oh my God, Wyatt-"

Wyatt enveloped his friend in a quick hug, the relief sweeping out of his body in one huge exhale. He detached quickly, grabbing Rufus's arm and peered out of the door into the hallway, "Come on, we have to get out of here."

Rufus held him back before he could move further, eyes wide with increasing panic, "Lucy –Wyatt, _where is Lucy?"_

"She's fine," Wyatt explained quickly. The hallways was empty, but he had no way of even estimating how many more of the gunmen were still out there, crawling around the facility. "She left to see her mother about half an hour ago. She's not here."

Rufus's shoulders slumped in relief. He glanced at Wyatt with a question in his eyes, "You think this is Rittenhouse?"

Wyatt nodded once, eyes dark, voice filled with sudden unbridled rage, "This is revenge. Pure and simple."

Together, the two men slipped out of the room, heading towards the nearest emergency exit that Rufus was aware of. They were turning around a corner when Wyatt felt someone grab his arm. He twisted free of the grip in one swift move and was ready to kick his assailant down with jab at the knee when he realized that it was Cristopher, one hand pointing her gun to the ground, the other holding a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture.

Another blast sounded in a part of the building that seemed suspiciously near, and the three of them quickened their pace towards the exist, the dull glow of approaching flames reflecting off the walls at the end of the hallway.

They approached a narrow metal door with a flickering red sign fixed at its head, and burst out of it and into a small service parking lot, the building behind them creaking and groaning, slowly edging towards the ground. Looking back at it, Wyatt realized that a good portion of it was already on fire –they had been amazingly lucky to have been in a part of it that had not yet been engulfed by flames.

They rushed towards the first car they could see, Wyatt smashing an elbow through the window to unlock the car from the inside, and Rufus crouching low in the driver's seat to hotwire the engine. Behind them, Agent Cristopher fired off a few quick shots towards two more gunmen who were headed towards them from around the corner of the building. Wyatt pulled the door to the driver's side wide open, shielding himself and Rufus and then firing off a few shots himself.

By the time they got into the car and were driving away, the building that was Mason Industries an hour ago was a now a flaming corpse, a shell disintegrating piece by piece, slowly shedding its parts to the ground in a heap of singed debris. Wyatt closed his eyes with a sharp inhale, head thudding back against the headrest of the passenger seat. Beside him, Cristopher's face was grim, her eyes slate cold.

"What now?" Rufus asked from the backseat, breaking the silence that had fallen over the occupants of the car.

"First we need to get to a secure spot," Cristopher said, "Whoever is responsible for this probably know we escaped and they could be on our tail right now. Then we need to find a way to retrieve the Lifeboat. Even if it's destroyed, we can't let it fall into the wrong hands."

Another beat of grim silence fell over the three of them as they silently processed everything that had happened. Wyatt couldn't believe that just about two hours ago, he had thought that this was all over. It seemed naïve now, in the light of recent events, to have even considered it.

"Where do we go?" Wyatt finally asked.

Cristopher didn't glance away from the road, "I know a place. Here's to hoping it checks out."

Wyatt nodded and pulled out his phone from his pocket, quickly scrolling to Lucy's name in his contacts and pressing the screen to his ear. It rung once, then twice, and then on and on, but there was no answer. A twinge of panic widening in his gut, he tried again. And then again. But nothing.

"Lucy isn't picking up," he informed the other two with rising frustration. "God, she could be headed back there as we speak."

Cristopher pulled the car into an alley behind what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse. There was little sign of life anywhere on the street or the road, the coarse tarmac lit only by a single streetlight burning yellow and the sparse illumination from the moon, high in the sky. Cristopher led them to a backdoor that seemed like it belonged to a place where people got kidnapped, and then typed a four-digit code into a small panel by its side.

It was dark when the three of them stepped in but then Cristopher turned on the lights and a large, empty room with a curved ceiling came into view. Panels of rust decorated the walls, and the air was thick and musty –it was obvious that the place hadn't been used in a long time.

"The agency used this place for a stakeout last year. We should be safe for now," Cristopher explained. She pulled out her phone, working through something on the screen. "I have a tracking software on here that I can use to find Lucy."

Trying not to think about how many times the same software had been used against himself, Wyatt only nodded, a testament to the urgency he felt in his gut. A few minutes passed, Wyatt's impatience growing, and it was only when Cristopher suddenly stilled in her pacing that he realized that something was wrong.

She looked up at them, mouth pursed, "You two need to see this."

Wyatt and Rufus were quickly by her side and she positioned her phone their way. "There was a raid at the warehouse where we were storing the Mothership," she said, face somber.

She played a video, and Wyatt watched as a familiar redhead strode towards a large door, striking a few bullets into the locking mechanism and then kicking the door wide open. She fired a quick shot into the first guard who approached her and then used the guard's body to shield herself from the other's aim. There were only three in total but she made quick work of them, expression barely edging out place. Calmly, she walked back to the door and closed it shut once again, leaving the bodies of the guards where she had dropped them. Then she approached the Mothership, glowing pearly white in the dull room, and popped open the hatch, slipping neatly across the circular threshold.

Wyatt and Rufus looked up from the video at the same time, sharing an apprehensive look. Cristopher nodded back to her phone –it wasn't over yet.

Cristopher fast forwarded the video a few minutes and then the door to the warehouse opened again. Wyatt sucked in a quick breath at what he saw.

It was Lucy, being herded in by another woman by her side. The woman was blonde and older and she had a hand at the base of Lucy's back, as though guiding her into the room. The action seemed innocuous enough but even from where he was standing, Wyatt could read the tension in Lucy's posture, could see how she tried to lean as far away from the woman's touch as she could. Her hands were clenched into fists by her side, and she looked straight ahead almost robotically. The woman beside her kept on talking but Lucy didn't open her mouth.

"That's her mother," It was Cristopher who finally spoke again, surprise coloring her voice, "Carol Preston."

"What is she-" Rufus started, "What's going on?"

Wyatt couldn't speak –he could only keep his eyes on the small screen, heart suddenly tight in his chest. On the video, Carol continued to lead Lucy towards the Mothership and then gestured for her daughter to step in. For a second, Lucy didn't move. She glanced directly at the camera that was recording the video they were currently seeing, and then her lips moved, forming only two words, but it didn't seem like Carol caught them.

But Wyatt did.

 _Rittenhouse._

Lucy stepped into the Mothership, Carol following in her wake. The latch popped closed behind them and then the Mothership vanished into thin air.

* * *

Wyatt thought he was going to go mad. It had been two days since Mason Industries had blown up –thankfully, Mason himself had managed to get out- and Lucy had been abducted by Rittenhouse on a mysterious mission back to the First World War. And they were still nowhere near getting the Lifeboat back to functioning.

Cristopher had somehow managed to retrieve the Lifeboat from the remains of the burning building and stash it in their secret warehouse. But the time-machine itself had been in precarious condition, a large part of the exterior charred beyond recognition and the internal system fried completely. Rufus had gotten to work on it immediately, but without a team, he had estimated that it could take days, maybe even a week. So far he had only managed to get the navigation system back on, and that was how they discovered the Mothership's whereabouts in time. Two days later, the three women were still in 1918 and nothing about that fact could put Wyatt at ease.

As if the time and location weren't dangerous enough, Wyatt had no idea what Carol or Emma had planned, what they wanted from Lucy in the first place. Every second that passed, she could be in danger, stuck in the middle of a literal warzone, and he would not be there to help or protect her. All day, he had nothing to do but wait and think and consider all the ways she could get hurt, or pulled into something that she wanted no part in, or be in a situation where she needed him, _dammit_.

He wasn't unaware of the thing between them.

The way it filled up the space between their bodies, hovering uncertainly, delicate like a spider-web but twice as strong. It was there in shared glances, squeezed into life-affirming hugs, in the way he reached across the distance to buckle her seatbelt every time they stepped into the Lifeboat. Even with how much time he had spent denying it, he wasn't that unmindful of his own self. And now that the self-realization had hit, now that he had realized how important she was to him, she was gone.

He knew it wasn't the same thing, that realistically Lucy's own mother would think twice before hurting her, but suddenly he was reliving those two weeks after Jess had disappeared, where he worried and panicked and drove himself absolutely crazy and it had still resulted in-

He shook his head; he couldn't think like this. He couldn't fall into that hole –not again.

Heaving a huge sigh, he walked back to where Rufus was working on the outside circuit board of the Lifeboat, and took a seat on the floor by his friend. They didn't talk. Rufus kept on working, Wyatt kept on thinking.

Now that she wasn't here, what he wouldn't do to continue their conversation back on the walkway at Mason's. This time, maybe he wouldn't talk about possibilities. This time, maybe he'd take her hand in his, press a kiss against her knuckles, and ask her out to dinner.

This time, he wouldn't be afraid.

* * *

When Carol first told her that they were gone, Lucy didn't believe her. Her mother's face was contorted in faux-sympathy; her voice was condescending, like she was consoling a child who had lost their pet turtle. "I know it doesn't feel like that now but it's better this way," Carol had said, "When you accept that this is where you're supposed to be, everything will make sense."

Lucy didn't reply. She couldn't reply. They couldn't be gone; they couldn't be dead. Her mother –the woman who had raised her, who had read storybooks to her at night, who had embraced her with pride at all three of her graduations –that woman couldn't do this. That woman wasn't capable of murder.

But more importantly, Rufus couldn't be gone. _Wyatt_ couldn't be gone.

Because if they were, she wouldn't know what she was fighting for anymore.

* * *

"Rufus," Wyatt implored, " _How much more time?_ "

Rufus looked tired, light bags underlining his eyes –he had been working on the Lifeboat non-stop for almost four days, helped only occasionally by Jiya who still wasn't cleared for any physical activity. But more than that, he looked worried too. The Mothership still hadn't returned to the present and the constant anxiety that Wyatt felt in his gut was reflected back at him in Rufus's eyes.

"Tonight," Rufus said, resolutely. "Tonight by the latest. I promise."

Wyatt nodded soundlessly. Inside his chest was a constant storm, of paranoia and worry and desperation. Every day that passed felt like Lucy was slipping further and further away from his fingers. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that his all-encompassing paranoia was a result of his time in the army, of everything he had gone through with Jessica, of the life he was currently leading. But he couldn't _stop_. Not until Lucy was okay. Not until she was safely back by his side.

It was three A.M. into the night that they finally stepped into the Lifeboat. The seat in front of him felt glaringly empty and he once again realized how wrong it felt, even being in the time-machine without her. Just before Rufus switched in the controls, he turned back in his seat, reaching out a hand to squeeze Wyatt's arm. His words brought Wyatt back to a few weeks ago, when he had said almost the same thing, "We are going to get her back, Wyatt."

Wyatt nodded, sealing in the last clasp of his safety belt. Late into the night, the Lifeboat vanished from time in a rush of ruffled air.

* * *

"You're in love with Lucy, just admit it!"

Rufus seemed to realize what he had just said only a second after Wyatt did. For a moment, they both froze, albeit for entirely different reasons. Wyatt supposed it was his fault –he had been nagging Rufus ever since they stepped out of the Lifeboat, trying to hurry everything along, constantly irritable and on edge. It wasn't Rufus's fault that he had snapped at him; Wyatt would've done the same and then more if the situation was reversed. The only problem were the words that his friend had chosen to voice out loud. One specific word in particular.

 _You're in love with Lucy._

It said something about his mental state that he hadn't even let himself consider that particular word for years. There had only been three people in his life that he had said _I love you_ to, and all three of them were now dead. He was well aware that he already loved both of them, Lucy and Rufus, in his own way, that they were as close to family as anything that he had now. But the way Rufus had phrased it –that wasn't the kind of love he was talking about, not by a longshot, and just because Wyatt knew it, he also knew that some part of it must be true.

"I-" Wyatt started, throat dry, a nervous churning in the pits of his stomach that felt more akin to a hurricane than a swarm of butterflies, "I can't-"

Rufus cut him off with a shake of his head before he could continue, "I'm sorry, you don't have to say anything. I shouldn't have said that –it's not my place."

Wyatt gave a short nod and then they both were silent once again, air thick with an intimate kind of understanding, laden with emotions so loudly unexpressed.

"You have the right to be happy, you know," Rufus said then, voice quiet, yet filled with purpose, "You think you don't. But you do –more than anything."

Wyatt didn't reply. A few seconds later, they both turned their attention back to the map of the battlefront that they had been arguing over, trailing the pockmarked locations in the dimness of the night, until they could trace a path to their destination.

"We have to turn right from here," Wyatt said. And then they drove on.

* * *

She didn't really know how she kept on going. There was a numbness inside her and that was perhaps why she didn't stop, why she didn't crumble –she charged right on through and kept going and kept going. All she knew was that if she stopped, her reality would catch up to her, and that would be it.

It was hard getting away from her mother and Emma, but not as hard as it could've been. They had underestimated her; thought that she'd break, become compliant once she heard of her friends' demise. But if they were really gone – _they weren't, they couldn't be_ \- than it was all more reason for her to fight harder, to make sure that their deaths weren't for nothing.

It was harder to figure out Rittenhouse's plan and to make a counterplan of her own. But her mother and Emma had only been doing this for a little while, and Lucy had been doing this for a lot longer. If anyone could figure out a plan, it was her. All she needed was a little help.

And she knew exactly where she was going to get it from.

* * *

Wyatt had been so focused on getting through to 1918, he hadn't exactly thought of how they would find Lucy once they got there. With their newly acquired costumes, he and Rufus blended in easily enough, but so did everyone else, the whole battlefront a moving, living sea of khaki.

But once they actually put some thought to it, it proved to not be that difficult at all. All they had to do was put themselves in Lucy's shoes and the answer became abundantly clear. They had been separated through time once before and she had helped herself then –they had to believe that she would be fighting back right now too.

He spotted her hair first, light curls that was more reminiscent to her normal hair than all the different styles she had worn through time. His heart picked up in hope and then relief, so sharp and stagnant that he almost called out to her right there and then. But then Rufus was there, pulling him back, and he realized they had to be more inconspicuous; Emma and Carol could be anywhere near, mingled deep into the crowd, watching their every move.

It was almost torturous following her from behind without alerting her to their presence. There was another woman beside her, one Rufus recognized and he didn't –Marie Curie, the first woman to have ever won the noble prize. Wyatt almost smiled at that –of course Lucy would've found Marie freaking Curie in the midst of a French battlefront and had recruited the woman to her cause. Had he really expected anything less?

The moment Lucy and Marie Curie disappeared into one of the small tents, Wyatt and Rufus were on their heels, checking their tracks and then slipping inside the tent behind the two women. Lucy reacted first, whirling around on her feet, hand immediately pulling put a small pistol from the satchel hung at her side. She looked tired but almost expectantly alert, light circles lining her eyes, small flyaway hair framing her face endearingly. Her hand was steady at her gun, and all Wyatt could think was how fucking brave she was, how much he wanted to never lose her again.

He saw her face collapse when she recognized them, the gun slipping from her fingers and falling silently to the ground. Her eyes were wide and filled with a thousand emotions he couldn't comprehend. Her breath hitched in a small hiccup, and then he was rushing forwards, sweeping her into his arms, tucking her so securely against his chest that he could feel the shudder that racked through her entire body.

"Lucy-" he whispered, closing his eyes, a wave of sharp relief washing over his heart, drowning him back to lucidity.

She let out a broken kind of gasp against his shoulder and then her hands were on his face, on his chest, brushing over the stubble on his jaw, "I thought you were dead," she said, a tremor in her voice, her eyes blown wide, like she couldn't quite believe that he was standing in front of her, "My mom, she told me you were dead-"

He stilled her hands by grasping them within his own, grounding her to reality, "I'm here, Lucy," he said, meeting her teary eyes with his own. He pulled her closer still, bringing their joined hand to rest between them, "I'm fine; we're all okay."

Lucy's head jerked in a short nod, gaze flicking all over his face before her eyes flew over his shoulders, catching on Rufus standing behind him. And then she was detangling herself from his embrace and rushing to Rufus instead. He immediately felt the sudden loss of contact –he wasn't ready to let go of her, not yet.

Rufus squeezed her into a hug just as tightly, lifting her a few inches off the ground, eyes closing on a relieved smile, "God, Lucy, these solo trips really need to stop."

Lucy let out a bark of laughter that sounded slightly manic and Wyatt was smiling too as Rufus grinned at him over her shoulders. Then Wyatt was reaching for them, two of his best friends, until they were squeezed into some sort of group embrace. Behind them, Marie Curie observed the exchange with a slightly bewildered expression.

For a few seconds, amidst the war for their lives, everything was alright.

* * *

It was later, when they were back in 2018, that it hit her. Everything she couldn't think about during the mission, everything that she had pushed firmly to the fringes of her mind until the job was done. But now that she was back in some normal clothes, staring at a crusty mirror in the warehouse bathroom, the dam suddenly burst. Her fingers shook where they held onto the cracked porcelain of the vanity, her breath came out in short pants. Her mother was Rittenhouse. Her chances for getting Amy back were slimmer than ever. She had thought her friends were _dead_.

She didn't ever want to revisit that feeling. The iciness that had spread through her limbs, the heaviness of her despair, an anchor dragging her down from the inside. She had felt weightless, insignificant. Did any of this even matter if she didn't have her partners, her best friends, to fight alongside her, to come home to? Ever since time traveling had become something that was part of her daily routine, they had been her tethers, the tight-knot that kept her boat ashore. And now she knew what losing them felt like.

She would do anything, anything in the entire world, anything in the entirety of time, to make sure she never felt that way again.

She exited the bathroom into the dimly lit locker-room that was a far cry from the facilities they had at Mason's. Dropping her world war clothes to the floor, she took a seat on the thin steel bench that ran along the middle of the room, resting her face between her hands, trying to put a lid on the buzzing emotions inside her head. She realized, with a sinking feeling inside her chest, that even if she could go home right now, she'd have nowhere to go.

She didn't know how long she sat there before she felt someone enter the room and take a seat beside her on the bench. She knew it was Wyatt –from his footsteps, from the weight of his presence in the room- and she waited a few seconds more before finally looking up.

His hand was warm on her arm, his eyes so glaringly blue in the dimness of the room. "You okay?" he asked, voice a little gruff with exhaustion.

Something inside of her fell apart, and suddenly her eyes were tearing up again, and she hastily reached up a hand to wipe away the wetness. She shook her head and offered him a brittle smile, "Sorry, everything's just suddenly hitting me right now, I guess."

He hesitated, his hand tightening once on her arm and then letting go, "I'm sorry about your mom, Lucy," he said, softly.

Lucy nodded, closing her eyes against the concern she could see on his face. God, this was the last thing she needed: her feelings for him bubbling out unchecked amidst all her other conflicting emotions. When she had thought he was dead, something inside her had shut off, a void in her chest that she had been unable to comprehend. She hadn't known the depth of her feelings until she had realized that she might never see him again, that she might never sit across from him on the Lifeboat, may never get to argue with him on missions, or even to hold his hand, intertwine their fingers.

And now he sat in front of her, his concern for her shining deep in his eyes, and she could still not do anything. Not tell him how she felt when he was near, safe and warn and wonderfully alive, not tell him that sometimes he and Rufus were the only ones keeping her from going certifiably insane. For once in her life, she wished that things could be uncomplicated. She wished she could hold his gaze, touch his cheek, and tell him that she never wished to be parted from his side.

Instead there was this, them, the distance she was afraid they would never be able to cross.

She cleared her throat to dispel some of the tightness. She couldn't look at him, but suddenly it felt very important that she say something. "There was a moment," she started, a crack in her voice, "back in 1918, when my mother told me that Mason's had blown up with everyone in it. I didn't believe it at first." She looked up at him, and found him looking back at her with his full attention. "After all we'd been through, that couldn't be it, you know –everyone couldn't just be _gone_. But then, she showed me a video."

Her hand started to shake and she curled her nails into her thigh. Wyatt noticed and he immediately reached between them, taking hold of her hand, uncurling her fingers. Something inside of her loosened with the feel of his palm warm against hers. "I saw the whole building collapse, Wyatt," she whispered, eyes losing focus from the tears blurring her vision. "I watched everything go up in flames. And then there was a moment, when I thought I'd lost everything, that I wanted to stop. Stop resisting Rittenhouse, stop trying to save history. Just stop."

His thumb rubbed a soft rhythm over her knuckles. He was so steady in front of her, listening intently to her words, his empathy written so clearly across his face. "Then why didn't you?" he asked.

She gave him another shaky smile, "I thought of you –and Rufus and Amy. I thought about how you wouldn't want me to give up."

His grip on her hand tightened and he gave her a small smile, "You thought right."

She shook her head, wiping her eyes with the hand he wasn't holding, "I almost did –I was this close to giving up."

"But you didn't," he said, staring into her eyes with a quiet conviction. "You didn't give up, Lucy. That's all that matters."

She held his gaze for a few seconds and then nodded. He pulled her to his side, hand coming around her back, and she rested her head on his shoulder, tucking her head under his chin. They both sat there with little space between their bodies, in the silence of the abandoned locker-room, thinking about nothing and everything.

There would be days in the future where she would've wanted to turn to him, take this thing between them in another direction. But for now, after the events of the past week, this was enough. He was by her side, solid and sturdy and alive, and she knew he cared about her more than he could express, and she knew that one of these days she was going to say something or he was going to do something, and they would finally _be_.

But for now, with his hand burning soothing patterns on her arm, and with the scratchy feel of his shirt against her cheek, she knew that they were going to be okay.


End file.
